Friday Apollo: a Blue Period

Apollo is on a diet, and that makes him very blue. Har har, see how I worked that in there? Yeah, seriously, he's on a diet. I took him to the vet last week, and we discovered that he was a shocking 93 pounds. He gained four lbs since his surgery in December. And that's on top of the seven he gained since summer. I did expect some weight gain because it's winter and we're less active especially in foul weather, but that's too much. He should ideally be under 80, but most of the time, he hovers around 82 because he's not super active due to his hips.

I evaluated his eating habits. He doesn't get a lot of treats. We walked fairly regularly, but evidently not often enough. And the real reason? I *ahem* am the main culprit - he is supposed to get half a "tub" (small tupperware tub) twice a day, but I had been giving him a little more each day because I felt bad for him after his surgery.  Or because he seemed hungry. Or... And we got to the point where he was getting a full tub twice a day. Oops.

So now he's on a diet, and we are walking more often. And each walk ends in a play session at the nearby field. As an aside, Canadian geese have taken over the field - goose poop yuck! And Apollo shows absolutely no interest in the geese. What kind of hunting dog is he? Anyway, he knows that all our walks, each one about a mile, ends up over there and he will faithfully carry the "flinger" the whole time. Every frickin' time. Apollo carrying a large, bright hunting-orange square frisbee toy that's bigger than his own head. We get odd looks from drivers as they pass us trying to figure out what the hell that dog is carrying.

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Friday Gangsta Apollo

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Friday Apollo Sneers

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Friday Apollo Heralds 2010

Finally! 2010 is here! Hurrah!

Pthhh, take that, 2009!

Side note: I've been trying to get a "shake" shot of Apollo for a long time. But 9 out of 10 times, I'm not ready for him when he shakes himself off or a toy. Finally! It's a good omen for 2010, right?

OK, I'm ready for 2010! Bring it on!

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Friday Franken-Dog Apollo

Appearances are deceiving.

This innocent, confused looking pup is in reality a Franken-dog!

See the staples?? (Click the pic for a better view)

The incision is about eight inches long. My hand is about eight inches long too, so I put it in shot for comparison.

P.S. I am adding a new picture of the day - it'll be dubbed Assignment Monday. Unless I think of something more creative. More on that on Monday.

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Inside Friday Apollo

Bear with me, I vaguely remember what the vet said about Apollo's innards.
These two are the first set of the X-rays we took on Monday.

The dark gray diagonal area near the upper-middle is the gas

Side view - it's on the left. The dark gray intersected by white on right is poop/gas.
Closeup. The gas part is the one that looks like a tubey hook. I am not sure what the white blobs to bottom and left is. Edited to add: someone thinks the bottom white is liver.
This is the second set we took, after we gave Apollo barium, to help track the progress. The barium is bright white (upper right corner). If you compare this to the first, you can see it has not progressed very far.
Third set of X-rays, taken Tuesday morning. Gas had not progressed very far since Monday late afternoon.
Bright white is barium. Gas is just ahead of it in left portion.
To the right, the squiggly area is his intestines.

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Apollo Drama! Part Four - Short, I promise.

Thursday. Finally.
After waiting not so patiently for the vet to call me this morning, she finally called with good news. Apollo could come home!

I picked him up this afternoon. He's pretty sore, but is considerably better than presurgery; he was all flirty and playful with the female techs. His to-be scar looks pretty nasty and Frankenstein-ish with the staples.

The vet I spoke to said it wasn't really 100% conclusive that he had a foreign body. It may be one of those things we never really know the cause of. Ah well. I've put a t-shirt on him to help keep his shaved belly warm.

I am supposed to make sure he does eat, and he has eaten a little bit for me. He's a picky bugger, though - wants the good stuff instead of rice. When I put out a bit food for him this afternoon, he picked out the burger and chicken and left the rest.

I'm one happy ducky right now. It's been so weird not having Apollo here.

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Apollo Drama! Part Three

The surgery went smoothly; however, they didn't find anything. There was no foreign body, nothing suspicious other than the gas bubble and inflammation in sections of the colon. They kept Apollo overnight to monitor him.

Wednesday:
One of the vets on the case (not Doc) on the case called me that morning and left a message; he had diarrhea overnight, which is good because it means everything's working again. They gave him anti-diarrhea medicine and were going to try feed some diet food. She told me that if he held his food down, that he could go home with me that night. I asked how he was acting, and she said he was alert and watching the ongoings in the lab, standing, walking, pottying.

But later that day, I got in touch with her, and it turns out Apollo still wasn't eating. She wanted to keep him overnight, and said we should still come in under the estimate (the surgery went really well). I said okay. We discussed some options regarding his not eating, and I suggested that I come in with some bland food that he might like. She thought it was a terrific idea.

That evening, after the visiting hours re-opened (they bar visitors from 5 til 7), I went to see him.

His scar is about 8 inches long. And his entire belly, halfway up his sides was shaved. They used staples to close the incision. It looked pretty angry pink-red. I'll take pics when he comes home to show off his macho new scar.

When it was just us in the visiting room, he was pretty quiet, just wanted to rest. Just lovin' my attention. But when the very pretty tech came in after an hour, he was all "I'm fine, let's play!" - he always puts on a good show with other people, especially the ladies. I told the tech that she shouldn't be fooled by his act. And made sure he was on pain management - tramadol? I don't remember how to spell it.

They let me stay an hour - normally visitors can only stay 15 minutes, but I think they gave me some leeway because they wanted to see if he'd eat for me. He, at the time, didn't want to eat much, but I got him to take a few bites of burger. I left the rice, burger and some of his kibble with them. She said they will continue try get him to eat overnight.

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Apollo Drama! Part Two

Tuesday:
That morning, he didn't seem much better, but didnt' seem worse either. Apollo was very quiet and did not want to budge any more than he absolutely had to. After talking it over with Betty, I decided to come in again to take a third set of x-rays. It showed that the bubble hadn't moved along much.

Betty was pretty concerned, and she recommended ultrasound. However, her clinic's ultrasound specialist was out, so she called Alameda East to see if they could pinch-hit. Alameda East - the very same hospital that's on Animal Planet channel. Apollo and I went there, we were in and out in 20 minutes. I didn't get to see any familiar faces from the show. Alas!

Betty got the info about the ultrasound results over the phone, and relayed it to me. "Possible foreign body, very suspicious." At that point, she recommended exploratory surgery. This is where, today, I'm a little angry about. Betty explained to me that the estimates for doing the surgery at her clinic would be between $3k and $4k. However, she said, her clinic has no overnight care. Which means I'd have to take him to the ER, and pay, probably around $1k or so for them to monitor him.

The other option, she said, was to take him directly to the ER, have them do the surgery and monitor him overnight. ERs for animals are notoriously expensive, and if I agreed to this, I was looking at a tab of nearly twice as much. Yes, you read that right. $7k-$8k. To make matters worse, the way Betty was talking about this, she made it sound like a do-or-die situation.

Being hit with that was...just stunning. I can't imagine ponying up that much. And for a surgery that may or may not find anything. I asked Betty to check at other hospitals to see if anyone would be willing to do the surgery for less than $3k and include overnight ICU. She reluctantly agreed. She called Alameda East, who never got back to us, and a couple other hospitals. I settled on one that was a bit closer to my place because I'd heard they were pretty good and their price range was far far less. I told Betty to call them back and let them know we'd be coming in.

At this point, I was pretty shocky, worrying about losing my dog. To make matters worse, as we were leaving, Betty kept apologizing. Profusely. I'm sure she was just feeling badly for not being able to help, but in my addled mind, it felt like she really thought Apollo would die in the surgery. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Over and over.

I managed to hold things together until we got to the latest hospital, got into a room to wait for a vet. And in walks the vet. We'll call him Doc. He introduced himself, and something about him...he just put off this calm, confident vibe. I stood up stuck my hand out and said, "Hi, I'm...wahhhhh!" When I'm really upset, my sinuses get all stuffed up, my face's red and blotchy and I have a hard time speaking clearly. Oh, why can't I cry like they do in Hollywood flicks with delicate tears and a sniffle here and there? Poor Doc, he must've been wondering why I was so upset.

After a couple minutes, and several blowing of nose, I finally managed to calm down a bit and explained what had just happened with Betty, how she kept apologizing and made me think Apollo was on death's doorstep. Poor Doc. He was such a champ. He looked over the paperwork, explained things, said it wasn't quite so bad. Basically talked me out of panic mode.

He also seemed a little irritated with how Betty handled the situation, said that he was not confident in her diagnosis and took all the paperwork and copies of the xrays and ultrasound to consult with a radiologist and two other surgeons. Doc came back, and they all said they wanted another ultrasound, and when he told me it'd be free, I could've kissed him. He explained that he wanted to figure out the cause before immediately jumping into surgery, unlike Betty.

The latest ultrasound, again, showed what looked like a suspicous foreign body, but again, noone was really 100% sure. All 4 vets agreed it should be checked out. Amazingly enough, this didn't upset me terribly. Probably because I was feeling good about these vets. So, last night, at about 5 PM, Apollo went into surgery. It should've taken an hour and half, but he got out at around 5:45. It went very smoothly.

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Apollo Drama! Part One

I try to not make this blog an All-About-Apollo extravaganza, but given the events of past three days, it seems appropriate right now.

Short version: Apollo got sick - seriously sick. We don't know what caused it, but it looks like he's on the mend now.

Here's the long, drawn out, gory details. Who knows, maybe this will help someone if this happens to their dog.

On Sunday morning, I woke to Apollo looking pretty miserable. I have no idea how long he was feeling that way, or if he tried to wake me. I sleep so soundly that it's pretty difficult to wake me. I feel guilty about that, but 'nuff said on that. Anyway, he would only walk a few feet, then lie down for a few minutes. He refused to eat. I thought, because he kept laying down, that he had jumped off the bed during the night and injured himself. "That's ok, it's just a back strain, if he doesn't get better, we'll go to the vet tomorrow," I remember thinking.

Thinking that it was just a sore back, I let him mope around all day, and went to bed as usual. During the night, the poor hairy guy vomited a few times. Again, didn't wake. In the morning, I found a few piles, and started deliberating on whether to take him to the Vet or wait it out. I had given Apollo a raw egg recently, and thought maybe it had upset his stomach.

Monday:
When he vomited water, that cinched it. I called the vet clinic we had gone to last summer, I liked them. The vet, who we'll call Betty, was naturally concerned, but felt it was minor. She recommended a wait-and-see with some light medicine to help the pain. She offered to do an x-ray to be on safe side. I agreed to the x-ray. It showed that there was a very large gas bubble in his colon.

That made us concerned, and when I saw the x-ray, I realized that Apollo's wanting to lay down was probably due to this, not a back injury. The vet wanted to see if the gas was moving along so she suggested another set of x-rays 2 hours later; I suspected it wasn't, because it was pretty close to his stomach, and it'd been at least 24 hours since the onset.

I'm really glad that I work from home; it gave me the flexibility of dealing with all this. Two hours later, we took another set of x-rays, and it showed that the gas bubble was moving but very slowly. Betty suggested wait-and-see, she thought that with anti-nausea medicine to help keep the food down, Apollo's gas bubble would move along with food's help.

That night, I slept on the floor with Apollo, keeping one hand on him so that if he got up, I'd definitely know. He didn't budge all night. I think he was exhausted from the ordeal.

To be continued tomorrow.

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Friday Apollo in Pieces

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Friday Apollo

No Friday the 13th Apollo. I didn't realize it was Friday the 13th until today.

Yes, Apollo is sporting his beloved "flinger" (flexible frisbee) on his head. Why? Just 'cause.

Apollo isn't too crazy about puppies/young dogs because they like to nip at him. I don't know why...they just all seem to like grabbing at his coat and if they can reach, at his scruff or jowls. One of my old roommate's young dog did this ALL the time, and that made Apollo pretty cranky. Based on that exp, I kinda figured we wouldn't be able to have a puppy, when the time comes for us to start looking for a new member - which is totally fine.

A couple days ago, Apollo and I went to a nearby field so he could stretch out his legs, and some guy was there with a cute little golden puppy playing fetch. I was impressed, the pup was 10, maybe 12 weeks old, and the guy is already working on teaching him manners - making him sit and wait for a release before he goes chasing after toys.

We go up to say hi, and of course, this little puppy goes nuts bouncing all over and trying to grab at Apollo's coat. Apollo tenses up and waits for the torture to be over. The guy calls the puppy back, and Apollo relaxes and actually initiates play with the pup after a few minutes.

After a bit, Apollo gets tired - poor old guy - and he lays down. The puppy fetches for a bit, then comes bounding over, and I could see Apollo tense up again. Then the puppy flops over in between Apollo's front legs and just lays there. Awwwwwww. *dies of cuteness* Apollo just looked at me like, "WTF, foodlady?" But after a few minutes, he relaxed too and gave the puppy a few licks. Awwwww!

It makes me happy to know that, with a bit of an adjustment period, Apollo would be okay with a puppy/young dog. I prefer to adopt an older dog, but never know who'll fall into my--err--our laps!

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Friday Apollo

Apollo still refuses to look at the scary black box, even if I try to lure him with a treat. He also turns his head, refusing to acknowledge the existence of annoying dogs or anything else he doesn't like.

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Friday Apollo

He looks like a bobble-head doll, doesn't he? He's got a fat head! Har har.

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Friday Apollo

I discourage Apollo from barking, but he can't help himself when my parents are around. Or when there's big horses coming and he wants to alert the food lady.

I imagine that it doesn't help that sometimes I will cheerfully ask him, "Why are you barking!?" That eggs him on even more.

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Friday Apollo

I've been somewhat busy recently - I had family in town for awhile, and that ate into my time. I played catch-up this week and am back on track. And bonus - I'm nearly done with my second Website (nevermind that the first isn't done). Keep an eye out for the link.

I like this picture of Apollo. The depth of field focus is a shade too tight, but because of how the light is and the general composition of the photo, it works nicely. Softens up the photo even more.

Apollo as Hoover vacuum.

Seeing as this is a Friday Apollo post, ya'all can probably guess what it is - Apollo's hair. Or more specifically, his tail.

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Friday Apollo

I moved here with just what fit in my car - no furniture, no bed, nothing. I sleep on an airbed now, and it's actually pretty comfortable. I sat on the floor for six months to watch tv or read, refusing to shell out hundreds of dollars for a sofa because the odds were good that I might move again with just what fit in my car. I didn't want to spend that money only to put it out on the curb. After I got the jeep, the worry about fitting stuff in the car lifted a bit - it has a towing hookup, and I can rent a little trailer from uHaul for about $15-$20.

Last weekend - six months after moving here, I found a chair that I liked. And I got it for $20. It's straight out of the 70s with green vinyl that squelches everytime you get on or off it. And it sticks to your bare skin. I like it a lot because it's smaller than most furniture currently on the market - it doesn't dominate the room. And bonus - it's on wheels (tacky gold wheels), so I can easily move it out of the way if I want the extra space or to vacuum up Apollo's hair. It's been deemed comfy by my parents who insisted on testing it, and they are picky.

Apollo likes it too. In a week we've had it, we've already formed a new ritual where he'll plop down against the chair's side and stare at me and sighing loudly until I drape my arm over the side to give him a good petting. The chair is lower to ground than most other couches or chairs; it's easy to oblige. And that's how we spend our evenings: reading in the chair with him right by my side getting what he loves the most - attention.

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Friday Apollo

I love Apollo's toe fuzz. I let it run rampant most of the year, except in winters when the snow get caught up on the fuzz and forms little ice balls in between the toes.

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Apollo

When he was a young'un, he loved people so much that he would do anything he could to get near them for pets. I remember coming home with a wrenched shoulder several times because he'd yank me - once, literally off my feet - when he saw someone walking nearby. I tried to anticipate it by wrapping the leash around my back and holding it in both hands, but that resulted in me being spun like a top.

As far as Apollo is concerned, people were put on earth to play with him, to give him bellyrubs and to babytalk him. It was his god-given right to go up to each and every one so they could endow this attention on him.

Somewhere along the way, it clicked in his little head that maybe it really wasn't a good idea to yank his poor foodlady becuase it made her kinda grumpy. I'd say roughly about a year or so ago - he's five now. Now, nine out of ten times, when we go walking, he will just look at anyone outside hopefully with those big ol' brown eyes and an eager wag of tail. If the person looks like she or he would like to pet him and if I'm not in a hurry, I'll stop and let Apollo let people give him loving.

The exception to this, however, seems to be people in uniforms. Back east, cops, mailmen, UPS delivery guys, etc would almost always stop to give him some TLC - and often, they would produce a hidden biscuit or treat to give to Apollo.

Because encounters with them are infrequent, I haven't been able to teach Apollo to ignore them unless I OKay it. Which brings me to yesterday's...we shall call it The Incident.

My apartment complex has a particular mailman that comes pretty regularly. He is the only mailman I've met that is actually afraid of dogs. Because of his fear, and because he's a nice old guy, I try to avoid going to the mailbox with Apollo when he's putting mail in the boxes.

Yesterday, while returning from a walk with Apollo, I noticed that he was in the back room, doing whatever it is mailmen do back there, so I figured it was okay for me to quickly check the mail.

When I had the mailbox door open, the mailman came out from the back room. Apollo saw him, and eagerly started toward him, tail wagging. The mailman squeaked (seriously - it was loud enough I heard that), and ducked back into the back room. Apollo tried to follow.

When I go walking with Apollo, I carry my apartment keys on a carabiner, which is in turn attached to the leash. Yesterday, the mailbox key was in the lock, the keys were still attached to the carabiner, which was still attached to the leash. And when Apollo tried to follow the mailman...

I now have a bent mail key and stretched out keyring.

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Late Friday Apollo

Guess what?

Apollo got a new ride.

About time, he says!

It's an old-ish jeep, but overall, it's in pretty good shape - other than the weird scratches and a couple peeling spots on the hood. But that's just cosmetic and a decent spot-paint job will fix that (an expense for another day). The engine is good, the tires are new. It's been maintained very well. It'll last me a few years, at least.

Yesterday I went to look at cars, and the Jeep dealer, which was second on list of dealers to go to, made me feel so comfortable that I wanted to buy from them. I felt that I was getting a good car, despite the cosmetic blemishes and they also offered me an extended warranty, which other dealers wouldn't do.

Extended warranties, especially on new cars, are largely a rip-off. But for a car that's eight years old, it's an excellent investment if you can get it. Especially on a car that's known to have pricey repairs. While I was waiting for the paperwork to be done, I chatted with the salesmen who were loitering around, and found out that there are a couple parts that are prone to breaking at about this age, and they cost between two and four thousand dollars to fix - depends on what type of jeep. Ouch! Definitely a good investment.

Anyway, after talking about Jeeps, about that particular jeep, getting questions answered, I felt they were not trying to rip me off, that they would take care of me and the car. The original sticker price, I think was either 10,995 or 11,995, and I had actually found a week-old sale ad for that specific car knocking it down to 9,999. I asked if they would honor it (yes). Then I negotiated it down another 2k to 7,999, citing the paint damage as the reason.

For some reason, I didn't check KBB on this car - I usually do before I go check cars. I probably thought I had already done it. I had a little notebook full of scribbled info about various cars at various lots. Anyway, it turned out I didn't, so I didn't know what its value was rated at. After I got home with the jeep, I found out it was rated at 7200 for "Excellent," so I could've negotiated least another 1k off.

Although it's a lot of money, it doesn't distress me too much because, again, I feel very comfortable with this car, and feel I got a good bang for the buck. And I'm just relieved to be done with this car hunting. It's a lot harder than I expected to find a decent car on a tight budget. I was very determined to do it without having to finance it - with unreliable income, it's a bad idea for someone in my boat to take out a loan.

One thing that surprised me about this whole ordeal is that I turned out to be a pretty good negotiator. I sometimes have a hard time saying no to people - it's the Irish guilt - and when I decided to start looking at cars, I worried a little that I would not be smart enough or strong enough to negotiate. Happily, I was wrong about myself and that feels good.

The End!

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